DeFi Digest
30 Results
BRC-20 FEVER Ordinal transactions on Bitcoin have skyrocketed in the last few months, leading to an all-time high for daily transactions and pushing Bitcoin network fees to 2-year highs. The activity throttled BTC’s network so much that Binance was forced to temporarily shut down withdrawals and implement Lightening Network to service outflows without paying excessive fees. There are currently two types of Ordinal transactions on the network: 1) Ordinal NFTs...
FIGURE: PEPES WEARING CONES TO CELEBRATE NEW CURVE ECOSYSTEM PROTOCOL INVESTMENT THESIS Out of the numerous tokenomic designs that emerged (and failed) last cycle, the vote-escrowed model proved objectively most ‘feasible’, as evidenced by Curve’s dominant position in TVL amongst DEXs. Control over a protocol’s gauge emissions made sense to many, assigning real value to governance tokens. The second-order expectations that liquidity would follow did as well. However, maximizing yield...
FIGURE: PEPE UNSHETH-ING ITS ETH TO SOLVE MULTIPLE DEFI PAINPOINTS Since the Beacon Chain launch in Dec 2020, Ethereum users could stake bundles of 32 ETH to secure the network in exchange for priority fee rewards. While these staked ETH[1] are ‘productive,’ many have opted against staking given its operational complexity and illiquidity. Liquid staking projects solve for this by managing validator uptime and offering liquid staking derivatives (LSDs) to...
FIGURE: PEPE LEARNING ABOUT GHO AFTER BEING RUGGED BY UST Source: Fundstrat INTRODUCTION Founded by Stani Kuchelov, Aave (formerly LEND) is the largest DeFi lending market by TVL (~$8b across v2 and v3) and the fifth largest dApp overall. The protocol is currently live across five networks and 11 markets, hosting more than 30 assets across its platform. In July ‘22, Aave announced that they are launching their native stablecoin,...
FIGURE: WASSIE TAKING NOTES AT ETH DENVER MAIN STAGE We recently attended the main conference and side events spanning throughout ETH Denver and have put together a special edition of DeFi Digest to highlight some of the protocols and themes prevalent in the digital asset space today. The panelists throughout the multi-day event ranged from Layer 1 and 2 networks, venture capital firms, dApp protocols and infrastructure service providers to...
Fundstrat’s recently launched Crypto Core Strategy offers subscribers a digestible tool to manage their crypto portfolio, with the goal of outperforming bitcoin. For those looking to amplify the returns of their long positions, this complementary issue of DeFi Digest strives to cast light on some of the best risk-adjusted yields. We first describe our methodology to filter for yield opportunities, then dive into the protocols offering the yields, and describe...
FIGURE: GMX BLUEBERRY CLUB MEMBER AND STFX PEPE ATTRACTING RETAIL LIQUIDITY TO THE SLAUGHTERHOUSE UNDER THE GUISE OF EDUCATION In our last issue of DeFi Digest (On Tokenomics), we acknowledged that multiple projects with weak tokenomics have performed well in the past. This points towards the prevalence of narratives driving price action, even nine years after Bitcoin was birthed. Instead of lamenting on this or waiting until fundamentals become consistently...
FIGURE: A TEAM OF PEPES CONCOCTING THE PERFECT TOKENOMICS Tokenomics (a portmanteau for token and economics) represents the monetary policy of tokens that directly contributes to their price fluctuations. In bull markets, tokenomics were given utmost priority, sometimes constituting full theses for investment decisions. When the euphoria wears off in the bear, however, founders and market participants are left realizing that tokenomics can delay a weak project’s demise, but cannot...
FIGURE: GMX BLUEBERRY CLUB MEMBER TRADING USING GNS NFTS WHILE DYDX HEDGIES WATCH INTRODUCTION AND OPPORTUNITY In the last issue of DeFi Digest, we dove into decentralized options, a ‘Zero-to-One’ primitive that can onboard the next wave of DeFi users. Perhaps long overdue, this week we dive into decentralized perpetual futures, an instrument native to the digital asset space. A regular futures contract is simply a contractual legal agreement to...
FIGURE: QUANT PEPES TAKING TURNS PREACHING DECENTRALIZED OPTIONS INTRODUCTION AND OPPORTUNITY Options are one of the most popular derivatives in traditional markets among institutional and retail investors. Due to their versatility, traders use options to hedge existing positions, speculate on a security's directional moves, or generate income. In 2021 alone, 33.3b options contracts were traded, up 35% from 2020. Much of this growth can be attributed to retail traders, who...
FIGURE: PEPE SIMPSON REMINDING HIMSELF THAT FDV IS NO LONGER A MEME In light of recent events, it’s safe to assume that crypto winter has come to an end and that we have officially entered crypto’s ice age. SBF et al not only defrauded investors of Alameda Research and customers of FTX, their actions also destroyed ~600m in TVL from the Solana ecosystem. FIGURE: SOLANA PROJECTS BY TVL Source: DeFiLlama,...
